


sleep well, my darling

by lizalilac



Series: Soft Goro Week 2020 [3]
Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: During Canon, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Friendship, Gen, Platonic Cuddling, Sleep Deprivation, Sleepy Cuddles, Soft Goro Week 2020, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings, spoilers for November
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:42:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25261789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizalilac/pseuds/lizalilac
Summary: Soft Goro Week Day 3: Sleep and Dreams“So all we can do is wait? This could get real boring real fast,” Ryuji complained.“Don’t be like that, Skull! You’d appreciate us doing this for you if you were in his position, right?” Haru scolded gently, reminding Ren a lot of a mother trying to teach her kid manners. He quickly suppressed a snort.He turned his head to look at Goro’s sleeping face, noticing just how peaceful he looks like this. For the first time today, the tension that lingered in his shoulders was gone, replaced with pure relaxation. Even in his sleep, he kept his arms crossed over his body protectively, but he wasn’t gripping his own arms as tightly as before.(Or, a sleep ailment works too well on Goro and the Phantom Thieves love their banter.)
Relationships: Akechi Goro & Amamiya Ren, Akechi Goro & Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro & Persona 5 Protagonist, Akechi Goro & Phantom Thieves of Hearts
Series: Soft Goro Week 2020 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1827298
Comments: 10
Kudos: 138
Collections: Day 3 - Sleep and Dreams, Marigolds Discord Recs, Quality Persona Fics





	sleep well, my darling

**Author's Note:**

> ahhhh day three!!! this is actually one of my favourites purely because of the banter, it's incredibly good. stay tuned for an extra chat-fic segment in the author's notes at the end, i couldn't help laughing while typing it out.
> 
> EDIT: ohhh my god i wasn't expecting this at all but tuggi made [the cutest art](https://twitter.com/JustTuggi/status/1312519175273803777?s=19) for this fic, please go check it out it's so good!! 😭💕

Ren prided himself on being relatively observant, having always been able to spot tiny details sooner than other people. He was especially observant when it came to the people he cared about, being quick to notice any changes in their behaviour or appearance. He worried a lot, though he didn’t show it, preferring to watch from a distance and step in to help if needed.

He took a moment to look at his teammates when they entered Mementos, taking note of any oddities. All of them seemed quite relaxed today, lacking the tension in their shoulders or the furrow in their brows that he sometimes noticed. Ryuji was shifting from foot to foot as Ren assembled his party, but he knew that was only because the other was ready to go and kick some ass.

What was unusual, however, was the way Goro kept rubbing his temples. He seemed to be staring off into the ground and blinking more slowly than he usually did, as well. Ren briefly wondered if he was feeling ill or something, so when he called him over to join his line-up, he decided to ask.

“You feeling okay?” He kept his tone quiet so the others wouldn’t overhear.

Goro blinked twice, raising his eyebrows. He obviously wasn’t expecting Ren to check up on him. “Yes, I’m alright. Do I not seem so?”

“Hmm, you look a bit tired, is all,” he said. Now that Ren was closer to him, he could swear he saw eye-bags tinting the skin that Goro’s mask didn’t cover. “Tell me if you start feeling unwell.”

“Haha, no need to worry,” Goro reassured, but Ren wasn’t sure about not worrying. He simply nodded before calling over Makoto and Haru to join the front lines.

Ren watched as everyone piled into the Mona Bus, claiming the driver’s seat just as Ann claims shotgun. Futaba and Yusuke already began chattering, sitting next to each other with Makoto sitting nearby to calm them down if it somehow spirals into an argument. Ann turned in her seat to pick on Ryuji for touching the air conditioner, who was trying to defend himself, but it seemed to be hard to do that when Haru was cracking up.

He noticed that Goro sat at the back of the car, instead of his usual spot right beside the door. Ren knew that he sat there to be able to get out of the car quickly and retaliate if an enemy attacks, but he wondered why he opted for the back seat this time. He didn’t even pay attention to Futaba and Yusuke talking loudly next to him, just seemed to close his eyes and cross his arms and legs, effectively closing himself off with his body language.

Ren exhaled through his nose, hoping that it wasn’t anything too serious as he drove on the rails, avoiding as many enemies as he could and grabbing treasure on their way to find their targets. He checked up on everybody from time to time, keeping an especially close eye on Goro, who seemed to slouch even more than before. Is he asleep?

He stepped on the brakes sharply when an enemy ran towards them, jolting everybody out of their relaxed state as the starting line-up got out and stepped into their battle positions. Ren double checked everybody’s condition before focusing on the three Sandmen. Right, he knows their weakness.

Ryuji wasn’t on the team so he had to deal with them himself. He called out to Queen Mab, unmasking himself as he cast Mazionga. It hit two of the enemies but one dodged the hit, deciding to take revenge on Ren by hitting Goro with Dormina.

Ren cursed under his breath, using Mazionga again to try and hit the god forsaken Sandman. He saw Goro fall to the floor out of the corner of his eye, then ordered Haru to heal him with Amrita Drop. Makoto helped Ren chip away at their health using melee attacks, finishing off the fight within seconds.

He turned around to see Goro still passed out on the floor and immediately ran over, crouching beside him. Wasn’t he supposed to be awake by now? “Noir, did you try healing?”

“Well… yes, I did, but he’s still fast asleep. I’m not sure why,” Haru responded, biting her lip thoughtfully.

Ren turned Goro onto his back, taking a glove off to press the back of his hand against the other’s forehead. He doesn’t have a fever.

“Oracle, is the status ailment still affecting him somehow?” He asked, looking up to find that she’s already trying to figure out what’s going on. The rest of the thieves look either concerned or confused, which he can’t really fault them for. This hasn’t happened to any of them before post-battle.

“No, Noir cured him successfully. He should be awake by now, but…” She trailed off, lost in thought as she tried to come up with a reason. “His energy seems to be quite low. The only explanation I can come up with is that maybe he hasn’t slept well recently, so the sleep ailment worked more effectively than it usually does.”

“Sleep deprivation?” Makoto mumbled to herself, walking over to Goro and taking his mask off by the nose. “Hmm, I think she’s right. He has terrible eye-bags.”

Ren sighed, glaring at the floor. “Damn it, I noticed something was off about him…”

“You asked him about it earlier too, right? Don’t blame yourself about it, I doubt he would’ve said anything, no matter how much you pried,” Ann reassured. Oh, so someone overheard them after all.

“Uhh… That’s fine and all, but what are we going to do with him? We gotta continue,” Ryuji questioned bluntly, furrowing his brows.

Yusuke was quick to come up with a solution, though. “I can only assume there’s a rest area on the next floor, so we should move there as soon as possible.”

“Come on then, get in!” Morgana urged them, turning back into a car. “We can’t stay here for much longer, an enemy might ambush us.”

Everybody was quick to move, getting back into the Mona Bus as Ren slung Goro’s arm over his shoulder, pulling him along to the passenger seat. Ren shut the door on Goro’s side, running to the driver’s side and starting up the car. He had Futaba help by yelling directions at him from the back of the car, having forgotten where the exit was in his mildly panicked state.

As soon as they made it to the next floor, it felt like a weight was taken off of Ren’s shoulders. The sight of a rest area has never been so delightful. Ren carefully took Goro to one of the seats, making sure his head wasn’t awkwardly positioned before sitting down next to him, sighing heavily. He closed his own eyes for a bit, relying on the sound of footsteps to tell him that his teammates were also taking the opportunity to rest. He looked up at them again after a moment, listening to them to distract himself.

“How long do you guys think it’ll take for him to wake up?” Ann asked, picking at her bottom lip with her nails.

“Who knows, it could take a while,” Makoto responded. “From my own experiences, napping while sleep deprived could last anywhere from half an hour to multiple hours. Though I’m not sure if his body thinks of this as a nap or if he’s completely out…”

“So all we can do is wait? This could get real boring real fast,” Ryuji complained.

“Don’t be like that, Skull! You’d appreciate us doing this for you if you were in his position, right?” Haru scolded gently, reminding Ren a lot of a mother trying to teach her kid manners. He quickly suppressed a snort.

He turned his head to look at Goro’s sleeping face, noticing just how peaceful he looks like this. For the first time today, the tension that lingered in his shoulders was gone, replaced with pure relaxation. Even in his sleep, he kept his arms crossed over his body protectively, but he wasn’t gripping his own arms as tightly as before.

He was so focused on gazing at the boy to the point where he didn’t notice his body swaying to the side, only realizing it when he felt the weight of Goro’s head on his shoulder. Ren blinked slowly, taking his sweet time registering the action, then felt his cheeks go up in flames. If he really focused, he could hear Goro making these little breathy noises as he exhaled, which made Ren’s heart scream.

“Did… did he just?” Ann asked cautiously.

“It seems so,” Haru responded, just as baffled as the rest of them.

Meanwhile, Ryuji and Futaba were struggling to keep their laughter down. Ren would’ve scolded them for laughing at his misery, but he couldn’t find the words at the moment.

“Oh mannn, I wish I could take a picture of this!” Ryuji whisper-yelled between giggles, holding his stomach.

“Snrk- I know what you mean, this is perfect blackmail.” It’s almost incredible how hard Futaba is trying to keep her voice down, now if only he could say the same for her chortling.

“A picture, you say?” Yusuke murmured, taking out his sketchbook and flipping to a blank page, quickly beginning to sketch out the scene. Ryuji laughed even harder at this.

“For real?!”

Morgana sighed to himself. “Jeez, none of you are capable of being quiet. I’m surprised he’s still asleep.”

He’s right. Somehow, Goro didn’t even budge during all of this commotion. Ren sighed quietly, choosing to ignore them as he turned his attention back to the boy using him as a pillow. He instinctively brought a hand up to brush away a lock of hair that fell in front of Goro’s face, tucking it behind his ear. Despite all of his efforts to block out the other’s voices, he heard Ann’s tiny noise of delight.

There’s just something so childlike and innocent about his expression right now. That’s right… He keeps forgetting that all of them are still just kids. He frowned a bit and brought his hand back to his lap, then reluctantly pulled his gaze away too, redirecting it to his hands as he picked at his gloves.

He felt himself going down a rabbit hole of sad thoughts but immediately brought himself out of it. No use lingering on what he would have, could have, should have done. He felt Goro stir next to him, but he didn’t wake up entirely, just uncrossed his arms so that he could cling to Ren’s arm then fell back into a deep sleep. One of his hands fell into Ren’s own, almost interlocking their fingers. _God damn it_ , his heart was melting.

“Joker, your cheeks are pretty red, you doing okay there?” Ryuji asked teasingly, obviously trying to embarrass him further. Why.

“Perfectly fine, Skull.” _Just losing my mind over here, Skull._

Makoto chuckled, shaking her head. “You say that, yet you’re sitting deathly still for fear of waking him up.”

Well shit, he couldn’t really deny that. He hasn’t moved an inch, just letting himself be slept on, because god knows how much Goro needed it. Ren knows exactly what it’s like to be so sleep deprived to the point of being unable to function, so he’s not about to do something stupid like wake him up accidentally.

Yusuke seemed to be erasing part of the sketch aggressively after their position changed, probably trying to include the new detail. Haru was peering over his shoulder quietly, watching him work with a tiny smile on her face, then spoke. “Do you think it’d be a good idea to show this to Crow when he wakes up?”

“Huh? He’s gonna be embarrassed about it though,” reasoned Ann.

“Exactly. I want to see his reaction!” She smiled innocently, though the mischief was visible in her eyes.

“Noir, I like the way you think,” Futaba agreed with a wide grin. “How about… Instead of showing it to him directly, I could scan the drawing and set it as his phone wallpaper?”

“Won’t he suspect the bug, though? He might check his phone for it if he thinks someone tampered with it, and that could ruin our plan,” Morgana whispered to Futaba.

“No need to worry, he won’t be able to detect it on his own, not without knowing the program needed for the procedure. I was very thorough, so he’ll come up with nothing and then assume we just set the wallpaper while he was passed out,” she explained.

He stared at her for a moment before grinning devilishly. “In that case, have at it. I have to admit that I’m also curious about his reaction.”

“Hehe, permission granted!”

Ren suddenly felt a few years being cut off of his life span. “Uhh… Can we not? Please?”

“I’m done with it, Oracle. Please handle it carefully and return it to me when you’re done,” Yusuke said as he handed the sketch to Futaba.

“Woo, that’s what I’m talking about!” Futaba looked at it for a moment, nodding appreciatively before setting it onto her lap and taking out her phone to scan it using an app of some sort.

“Am I being ignored?” Ren pouted. So much for listening to the leader’s orders.

Ryuji nudged his arm, grinning. “Come on, don’t you wanna see how he reacts too? It’ll be fine!”

Well, that’s lovely. He sighed again, resting his head on Goro’s after he felt his neck cramping up. When he was this close to him, it became so much harder to ignore the fact that Goro’s hair smells like something sweet and calming. Is it vanilla? Or is it something else? He wasn’t that sure, but all he knew was that it’s incredibly soothing, almost to the point where he kind of wanted to drift off to sleep too.

He wondered if there was any way he could convince Goro to give him a hug sometime, just so that he could experience this kind of calm again. It would definitely be nice… Though he’d probably have more luck just buying himself a vanilla candle. Just vanilla wouldn’t feel authentic though, there was another scent there, but he couldn’t figure it out.

It was at that moment that he felt Goro’s muscles tense up again. He gazed at Goro as he made a small noise and opened his eyes, blinking slowly to get a grasp of his surroundings. The boy yelped and tore himself away from Ren when he finally realized what he was doing, blushing violently to the tips of his ears.

“Ah- I, um, huh? What… Joker? What happened? Why was I clinging to you?” He stammered, struggling to find the words to say.

Ren felt his lip tremble as he tried not to laugh. Maybe the others were right about the reaction thing. “Hey, it’s okay. You didn’t wake up after the fight so we brought you here and let you sleep. You’ve been out for around… half an hour? We didn’t want to wake you up because we thought you were sleep deprived.”

Goro seemed to calm down a bit after hearing the explanation, but still heaved a sigh. “I’m sorry for slowing you all down, you should’ve woken me up.”

“Come on, don’t you feel better now?” Ren asked, gently setting a hand onto Goro’s shoulder. “We didn’t mind at all, it was our unanimous decision to let you rest.”

“I…” Goro worried his lip with his teeth, averting his gaze down to the floor. “Thank you. I didn’t want to say anything about it, but I haven’t been sleeping too well recently. I really appreciate it.”

Ryuji reached over to punch Goro’s arm gently with a large grin on his face. “Don’t go pulling that kinda shit again! Get your rest as soon as you get home, man.”

“Uhm, if it’s nightmares…” Futaba spoke up nervously, twiddling with her thumbs. “Talk to me about it? I can help, I have experience with that sort of thing too!”

Goro’s eyes widened at the offer, obviously taken aback. “Ah… Thank you for the offer, but I don’t think it’d be too kind of me to wake you up in the middle of the night. Nightmares tend to wake me at odd hours.”

“Bold of you to assume I’m asleep, I’m more likely to be awake than not.”

“Really? If you’re sure it’s okay, I might take you up on that sometime,” Goro accepted with a hint of a smile.

Ren was honestly impressed that Futaba of all people offered to help. He couldn’t help feeling proud of her for extending the offer, deciding that he wanted to be there to help Goro as well. Despite all that he knew about him… He still wanted to help. “You can talk to me too, Crow. We’re both willing to help whenever you need it.”

“As am I,” Yusuke chimed in. “I’m relatively good at calming people down after nightmares or during panic attacks, and I usually find myself awake after midnight due to my projects.”

Makoto chuckled quietly. “It seems like our entire group is willing to lend a hand. Are you willing to let us help?”

Goro still looked a bit surprised, but he slowly began to accept the idea of help, uncrossing his arms for once and letting them hang at his sides. His smile that was barely there before was replaced by a wide grin, though it felt different from the obviously fake grins that he’d put on for the public. This one… It felt genuine.

“Haha, thank you so much! I wasn’t expecting this at all, but I’m really grateful for it,” Goro expressed, standing up from his seat. Ren knew he was doing better, but he still watched him carefully to make sure he wasn’t weak or unsteady. “I’ll definitely take your offers if I find the need. Now, shall we get going?”

Ren smirked, fixing his gloves as he stood up and gestured to the others to follow. “Let’s go.”

**Author's Note:**

> Phantom Thieves Group Chat
> 
> Today (8:29 PM)
> 
> Goro: … Who changed my phone wallpaper?  
> Goro: And why did Kitagawa-kun draw that? Now I’m even more embarrassed.  
> Futaba: SDHFKJSHFJSF  
> Ren: hhnngng i couldn’t stop them,,,  
> Makoto: I honestly didn’t feel like stopping them, it WAS pretty funny.  
> Yusuke: Do you not like it?  
> Yusuke: I feel like I captured both of your expressions perfectly.  
> Ann: oh my god  
> Ryuji: AHAHAHAHHHH  
> Goro: That’s… not the problem here.  
> Goro: Wait, Niijima, you just allowed it?  
> Makoto: I said what I said.  
> Futaba: they wanted to just show it to u directly but I thought that was boring  
> Futaba: you’re welcome uwu  
> Haru: You’re welcome uwu
> 
> Goro left the group.


End file.
